Dissemination and publication of research findings: an updated review of related biases

Abstract

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Health-related quality of life after bariatric surgery: a systematic review of prospective long-term studies

“…Finally, testing for funnel plot asymmetry was not performed as only seven studies were included in this review [37] . We acknowledge that reporting bias may lead to over-representation of significant or positive studies [38] .…”

Fate of Clinical Research Studies After Ethical Approval—Follow-Up of Study Protocols Until Publication

“…Language of publication(s). 367 (88) 25 (6) 27 (6) 259 (62) Single-centre study 159 (38) 1 (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18) 129 (81) 16 (10) 14 (9) 158 (99) Multi-centre study 260 (62) 1 238 (92) 9 (3) 13 (5) 101 ( perceived as an overestimation of the publication proportion. We excluded conference abstracts and other so-called 'grey literature' because those publications are often not indexed in electronic databases (in particular, abstracts of smaller conferences).…”

Laryngeal preneoplastic lesions and cancer: challenging diagnosis. Qualitative literature review and meta-analysis.

“…• Publication or dissemination bias-Several systematic reviews of empirical studies have found that clinical trials with statistically significant (P<0.05) or positive results are more likely to be published than those with non-significant or negative results (39)(40)(41). Investigators' decisions not to submit papers with negative results for publication, rather than editors' rejection of such papers, tend to be the main source of publication bias (42).…”

“…However, the decision to write up a study for publication may be influenced by pressure from study sponsors and journal editor (25). Studies with statistically significant results also tend to be published earlier than studies with non-significant results (40). If studies are missing from a systematic review for these reasons, exaggerated results may be produced.…”